Okay, Okay, Now I (Sort of) Love Dyke Bars*
But I've never shared the reason I now (sort of) love dyke bars*. My anger arose from the question posed to me. And asking why lesbian bars are closing is an incredibly boring question.
Yesterday, in "I (Used to) Hate Dyke Bars*," I revealed my abhorrence for the same spaces that 1) I've now spent years researching, 2) I'm soon launching a podcast(!) about, and–wait for it–3) I'm even writing a book about. So much more to come about all of these projects. And, clearly, my intriguing psyche.
I thought I hated dyke bars* because everyone (journalists, cis-hets, queers, and transes) is obsessed with them. On the day I was telling The New York Times that, no, lesbian bars aren’t over, and, yes, they are needed, I had a startling realization: they were all asking the same useless question of why lesbian bars closed. In fact, I even guessed their questions in advance. (Note: The New York Times has become trash; journalist Erik Pipenberg remains a total nugget).
But the reason I now (sort of) love dyke bars* is the same thing that, for all of these years, I never ever shared in any podcast or journalist interview. I left out the one key thing that I’ll tell you now. In a Rilke style, I've learned to hate and love the questions themselves. The more I read and wrote and spoke to dykes*, I realized my real anger arose from the question posed to me, or in other words:
Asking why lesbian bars are closing is an incredibly boring question.
To dive in, we need to look at a stunning graph. I'm sure you have heard that gay bars are closing, and you've likely heard that there have only ever been 200 lesbian bars at one time in the U.S., and then only a paltry 16 U.S. lesbian bars in 2019. Before we had this number through it was just "a feeling" or "personal experiences" that dykes* had but couldn't quite prove.
This legitimizing data comes from author of Who Needs Gay Bars? and my brilliant friend, Greggor Mattson, who made a stunning graph documenting L+G+Q++ bar decline. He digitized and analyzed Damron Guides, which were travel guides primarily for gay men published from 1965 to 2021, and a women's guide started to be released in the 1990s (see also the dope Mapping the Gay Guides project). In sum: yes, bars for gay men, lesbian, BIPOC, LGBTQ, and cruisy/leather crowds are in decline.
Anyway, this gets us back to how every major and most minor news outlets published the same damn story asking why lesbian bars close, which you know makes me want to claw my face off. And the question of why lesbian bars close is so boring because 1) it's factual, and 2) it's weird and lazy af that people don't just look up the decades of reporting on U.S. and beyond lez, queer, and gay bar closings for those various reasons.
As a less lazy nerd that I am, I've looked those reasons up to complement my study these and other patterns of lezbiqueer trans patterns over the last century. I answered the boring question with a really profound set of answers.
In fact, I already have already documented 112 reasons why lesbian bars closed!
Highlights (all tragic) among them?
Arson, rent too damn high, license denial/rescinding, racism, transphobia, and–you guessed it–the owners broke up.
And when I share them at any talk I give, no one in the audience is surprised at the individual reasons. However, for the audience and for me too, taking in the sheer weight of the long list is harrowing.
But the answers did not suffice. They take us to a space of loss if not death. A space with less hope.
I needed another question to keep me going, one full of as much life and hope as dykes produce on the regular. And I found it. I'll reveal that in a post soon!
**
ANNOUNCEMENTS, Y'ALL!
- Brace for delicious, juicy updates from the Lesbian Lives conference in NYC next week from October 24th-27th.
- At Lesbian Lives, I'm launching the Our Dyke Histories podcast. I'm host, editor, and producer, in collaboration with the nearly-50-year old lesbian multicultural literary and art journal, Sinister Wisdom. It's been a year in the making and the first season focus on – go ahead and take a random guess...YES, it's dyke bars*. I'll be discussing the history of lesbian bars, queer parties, and trans hangouts over the decades with guests including the coolest folks, including Cookie Woolner, Lillian Faderman, Jonathan Ned Katz, Hugh Ryan, Joan Nestle, Alix Genter, Maxine Wolfe, SaraEllen Strongman, June Thomas, Sarah Schulman, Valarie Walker, Katherine Forrest, and Roey Thorpe.
